Youth sports: Coping with little playing time

4:06 PM,
Apr. 20, 2014

Written by

Tom Kuyper

Coach Kuyper, we have a 7th grade son (Owen) who tried out for his school basketball team and made the cut. This is a relatively small junior high school, so they were only able to put one team together consisting of a mix of 7th and 8th graders. There are only nine kids on the team.

The coach told Owen that he probably wouldn't play very much and would really only see playing time when the game was a "blowout.'' Right off the bat, those comments affected his confidence level and he felt discouraged even before the first practice. He hasn't enjoyed his experience of being on his first school team as he was ...